Election fever grips govt. schools

School management committee polls to be held on Nov. 30

Election fever grips the Zilla Parishad and government schools where elections would be conducted for school management committees in the district.

The State government has issued orders for the same and the move, mandated through the Right to Education Act, aims at involving parents in the school administration.

The schools would issue separate notification for the conduct of the elections on November 22 and release voters’ list the same day. Any objections to the voters’ list would be looked into on November 25 at 4 p.m. The final list of voters would be issued on November 26 and the elections would be conducted on November 30 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. In the afternoon the same day, the newly-elected SMC members would elect the chairman and vice-chairman which would be followed by oath-taking ceremony and the first SMC meeting.

For each class, there would be three parents as members of the SMC. For primary schools, there would be a total of 15 SMC members, and for upper primary, it would be 21 members. For high schools, the SMC would have nine members. The elected SMC members would, in turn, elect a chairman and vice-chairman of the committee.

The respective school headmaster would act as a convenor of the committee, while a senior teacher of the school, a ward member, councillor, an ANM, a Mahila Samakya member and an Anganwadi worker would be ex-officio members. The ex-officio members would elect two co-option members for the SMC.

The SMCs would play a crucial role in increasing the enrolment of students into government schools, review the functioning of schools as well as the performance of students and teachers and work for the development of the schools with funds provided by the government.

In Karimnagar district, the SMC elections would be held in 656 schools where about 40,000-odd parents would participate.

However, the SMC elections may take on a political colour given the ruling party leaders’ eagerness to make their presence felt in the school committees too. It may be recalled that in 2016 elections, there were reports of the political parties organising camps for SMC members for occupying the coveted chairman and vice-chairperson posts.